Acuff hangs up microphone, but not his memories

Updated 9:28 pm, Saturday, September 1, 2012

Roy Acuff, 73, will call his final game Monday. “What a good hire he turned out to be,” team president Burl Yarbrough said of the voice of the Missions.

Roy Acuff, 73, will call his final game Monday. “What a good hire he turned out to be,” team president Burl Yarbrough said of the voice of the Missions.

Photo: For The Express-News

Acuff hangs up microphone, but not his memories

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

Roy Acuff was in a broadcast booth in Wichita, Kan., in July 1990 when wind and rain chased the teams off the field. The Missions' play-by-play radio announcer began filling time at the microphone.

The tornado-like storm kept howling, and Acuff kept talking, relating to the folks back home how wild it was becoming.

Finally, there was a knock at the door. A young intern poked his head in the room.

“Mr. Acuff,” he said, “I've been sent up here by our general manager to tell you to get out of this press box or die.”

The broadcaster, now 73, chuckled this week at the memory. “At that point,” he said, “I wised up and signed off.”

Come Monday, following the Missions' final home game of the season, Acuff will sign off again, this time for good.

After 25 years behind the microphone, either as a lead announcer or color analyst, the Mineral Wells native has elected to retire. He officially notified team president Burl Yarbrough of his decision Thursday.

Acuff's distinctive country drawl, baritone and measured, has brought listeners news of roughly 3,500 Missions games during his tenure. That span has included three major-league affiliations, seven division crowns and five Texas League championships for the storied franchise.

Yarbrough, working off a tape of a game Acuff called for a former minor-league club Victoria in 1974, hired the broadcasting veteran in 1988. Acuff, who had been selling television advertising in Waco at the time, arrived at V.J. Keefe Field for the club's opening homestand of the year.

In his first game, the Missions dropped a 10-9 decision in extra innings. Acuff still has the scorebook from that and every other game he called.

“I remember really struggling to try to be perfect on the air, and I was stiff as a board,” he said. “I did OK, but that was the first of 3,500.”

Later that year, he chronicled history when the Missions went a record-setting 26 innings — spread over three days — to nip Jackson, 1-0. The game, the longest scoreless contest in history, went 25 innings, stretching to 2:30 a.m. on July 15 before officials called things.

San Antonio, back on the field to finish it two days later, scored in the 26th to win. Acuff needed three pages in his scorebook — a Colt 45's version sent to him by then-Houston broadcaster Gene Elston — to account for all the action.

Acuff admits he will miss those moments, the players notable and little-known, even the lengthy bus rides and late meals in the dusty burgs of the Texas League. Because of health problems, he has not traveled much during the past three seasons.

More Information

ROY ACUFF

Age: 73

Hometown: Mineral Wells

With the Missions: Closing out his 25th year broadcasting the team's games. Has worked roughly 3,500 games with San Antonio.

Personal: Wife of 15 years, Kay. Has two daughters and five grandchildren. Has spent the past 50 years doing some form of radio play by play. The Army veteran is a passionate Boston Red Sox and Baylor fan.

- Richard Oliver

“To be kind of a small part of their lives, I loved that, I really did,” Acuff said. “The small talk on the bus, the way they treat the game away from the game, it's all been part of it.”

Now, as he considers the future alongside his wife of 15 years, Kay, Acuff knows he'll be wandering out to Wolff Stadium on occasion. He won't stay away, simply because he can't.

“I was reading the book, ‘Ball Four,' and the last line summarizes everything,” he said of the infamous baseball tome by ex-player Jim Bouton. “It says, ‘You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end, it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.' That's how I feel about the game in the last 25 years.”